By Amos Tauna
Primary healthcare workers in the 21 local government areas of Kogi State will go on strike if the state government fails to meet their demand for improved salary.
Comrade Rose Momoh, the State Secretary, Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, (MHWUN), in a statement explained that the primary health workers in the service of local governments have been collecting 30 to 35 percent salaries for the past two years, without an end to the problem.
According to her, in January 2022, the state government paid them 25 percent, describing it as the worst.
She further explained, “The salary the Kogi State Government is paying to our health workers at the local government level cannot take care of their transport from home to workplace, let alone bringing food on the table for the family to survive.”
She stated that the health workers can no longer bear the continuous hardship they are facing, adding that they risk their lives every day to save others, yet their salary is nothing to write home about.
She demanded that the state government completes the process of Primary Health Care under one roof and move the PHC workers and their salaries to the State Primary Health Care Development Agency (SPHCDA) without any delay.
She explained that they are also demanding that primary health care workers be paid 100 percent like their state counterparts.
The union appealed to the state government and health partners in the state to pay their full salary, stressing that they have continued to lose their members on a daily basis due to hardship associated with percentage salaries payment.
